Writing Mortals and Reading Gods Appeal to the Gods as a Dual Strategy in

Writing Mortals and Reading Gods Appeal to the Gods as a Dual Strategy in

Social Control*

Questions of definition**

An invitation to participate in a symposium on social control comes as a thrill - in more than one sense of that word — for the person who happens to be ignorant of what social control is. This, indeed, was the situation of the present author. So I asked those colleagues and friends who are good at difficult words, if they could tell me what social control was. Unanimously and categorically, they refused to respond to such a silly question, since, they told me, everybody knows what social control is. A person who feigns ignorance on this point tries to pull your leg. All this did not help me as much as I had hoped.

So, finally and reluctantly being forced to consult the relevant literature, in par- ticular some standard encyclopedias of sociology¹, it was a great relief to discover that the reason why I did not know what social control is, is that social control does not exist. What do exist are definitions of the concept. Many a specialist de- votes the first part of his scholarly life to creating his own definition, while spend- ing the rest of it on proving that all other definitions are wrong (or vice versa)². As

* I wish to express my gratitude to my (in every sense of that word) magic class at Berkeley (1999), for criticism of form and content of the present paper, in particular to Laura Gibbs who showered me with questions, corrections and suggestions (and to whom I owe a refer- ence to the maker of what I consider to be the most helpful definition of social control). Also many thanks to Angelos Chaniotis, who read a draft of this paper and offered many helpful suggestions and corrections, while also allowing me to benefit from an unpublished article (Chaniotis forthcoming 2001). Henrike Florusbosch did wonders in severely eliminating or adding punctuation and quotation marks (and other ill-defined niceties) wherever she saw fit to.

" Scholars who believe that research can be done without defining the object of their re- search may skip this section. See also n.6.

1 J. Gould, W. L. Kolb, A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (New York 1964) 650-52; A. and J. Kuper, The Social Science Encyclopedia (London 1985) 765-68; E. F. and M. L. Borgatta, Encyclopedia of Sociology 4 (1992) 1818-23.

2 But compare n.6.

a bonus I also found out that having a wrong definition is far worse than having no definition, the first being unforgivable, the latter only unimaginable.

Fortunately, the horrifying variety of individual definitions allows for a few - no less diverging — lowest common multiples. One group - in the wake of the founding father of the term social control, E. A. Ross

, - takes social control as

"concerned with that domination which is intended and which fulfils a function in the life of society", which in the end practically amounts to the idea that social control equals any collective activity that somewhere contributes to social order.

Another, more recent, trend, following its best-known representative Talcott Par- sons

, defines social control by reference to deviant behaviour: "Every social sys- tem has, in addition to the obvious rewards for conformative and punishments for deviant behavior, a complex system of unplanned and largely unconscious mech- anisms which serve to counteract deviant tendencies." These two definitions rep- resent radically distinct positions in their general purport as well as in their par- ticular implications. They reveal that social control may be viewed either as inten- tional or as unconscious, as an institutional system or a conscience collective, as external or internal, as reactive or deterrent, etcetera etcetera. To single out one specific distinction: it is obvious that the first trend will take law and jurisdiction as a central marker of social control, whereas the latter lays emphasis on mechan- isms beyond the well-defined institutional powers of repression. The contrast be- tween the element of enforcement through an institution (or its representatives) and less formal types of social pressure exerted by individuals or groups seems to draw a major dividing line in the modern discussion.

It is, then, (again) a relief to come across a series of studies by J. P. Gibbs

, who, first, provides a systematic and precise critique of the major theories, showing that more often than not they are circular, tautological, unprecise, hence unhelpful and in fact misleading, secondly, provides a clear general definition, which - beyond its appeal for various other reasons - has the great advantage of avoiding a fatal flaw typical of most others, by rigorously excluding other ill-defined concepts, such as social, deviant, power, or control, and, thirdly, suggests that "social con- trol is not one thing - a unitary, homogeneous phenomenon. Rather, social control is described as any one of five types of control behavior."

3 E. A. Ross, Social Control: Survey of the Foundation of Order (New York 1901).

4 T. Parsons, The Social System (New York 1951).

5 ]. P. Gibbs, Norms, Deviance, and Social Control: Conceptual Matters (New York, Oxford 1981), which will be my main source; idem (ed.), Social Control: Views from the Social Sciences (Beverly Hills 1982); idem, Social Control, in: A. and ]. Kuper, The Social Science Encyclopedia (London 1985) 765-68; idem, Control: Sociology's Central Notion (Urbana, Chicago 1989), Ch. 3: Basic Types of Control, Power, and Major Questions 43-75.

6 And there is much more. In Gibbs (1989) 58, we read: "Yet any definition is preferable to a common practice in sociology - to use the term control or write on "social control" without defining either term (follow examples), let alone confronting conceptual issues and problems.

One related practice is to publish an edited book bearing the title of social control without the slightest indication as to the sense in which the individual papers bear on the subject (fol- low examples)." Substitute "magic" for "social control" and you have a precise description of

Here is his definition: "Social control is an attempt by one or more individuals (the first party) to manipulate the behavior of one or more other individuals (the second party) through still another individual or individuals (the third party) by means other than a chain of command or requests." This definition merits praise for its cleanness. Gibbs' point of departure is his decision that the concept of social control requires three parties involved, which in a way is part of his answer to a most pertinent question raised by himself: "what is social about social control?"

Consequently, his definition excludes what he calls proximate control, meaning control without a third party (as when a mother physically restrains her child);

and it also excludes sequential control (as when X orders Y to order Z). Instead there are different types of control involved in his five types of social control of which I select the first two for treatment because they are the only ones that are directly relevant to my main argument⁷.

"Social control is an attempt by one or more individuals (the "first party" in either case) to manipulate the behavior of another individual or individuals (the

"second party" in either case) by or through·.

1) the first party communicating to the second party some reference to a third party,

2) the first party manipulating a third party's behavior by communicating alle- gations about the second party to the third party."

The first type belongs to the category of referential social control. For instance, a child says to a sibling: "Give me back my candy or I will tell Mother!" Note that there are numerous different ways of telling the third party, and of communicat- ing the message about this telling to the second⁸.

The second type belongs to the category of allegative control, and is exem- plarily conspicuous in - though by no means restricted to - tort law. This time the first party does not address the second but turns directly to the third party with his complaint. Yet it is still control, not constraint·, a plaintiff cannot command a judge to compel the defendant to pay damages; rather the goal is realized by alle- gations about the defendant which the judge finds credible and evaluates negatively.

Gibbs (1989, 60) adds: "Although both allegative and referential control entail judgments by the first party about authority, normative standards, and credibility, the two are distinct. Whereas in referential control the first party does not pre- sume that the third party will become involved directly, that presumption is essen- tial in allegative control. However, one and the same act can be both allegative and referential control" (my italics HSV)⁹. This might suffice for my present issue. For

what is happening in another sector of the scholarly world. And then I have not even quoted ibid. 23: "Indeed, a pernicious belief is pervasive in sociology: constructive research and the- orizing are possible without confronting conceptual problems (follow examples)."

7 I quote f r o m Gibbs (1981) 78, which is summarized in his other works.

8 See the example infra in n. 9.

9 In order to clarify that social control is not only about accusations and requests for justice or vengeance, I here add Gibbs's own illustration of this double strategy: "Although Hitler

we will find precisely this double strategy of social control in the material that I wish to discuss. But first I must add a few words on another fundamental series of studies, this time specifically concerned with social control in the ancient world.

Gibbs' broad but precise typology of social control covers both the informal types such as for instance gossip, and the formal, institutionalized types such as law or litigation - but only in so far as they involve three parties. Starting from a theoretical-conceptualist point of view, he thus levels the barrier between the two sometimes radically opposed schools described above. There is, however, another way to re-assess the rigid distinctions between these two categories, namely by showing that it is our modern legalistic conception of law and jurisdiction that is responsible for the all too harsh distinctions between justice as belonging to or as contrasted with social control. This is what David Cohen has done for Classical Athens in his innovative books of 1991 and 1995. On the basis of socio-historical and comparativist research, and with the aid of the evidence provided by modern Mediterranean anthropology, he showed that:

The informal social control of gossip and reputation, though still vibrantly present and so- cially contiguous with the judgments of the courts, supplemented a radically democratic mode of social control in which the people as a whole (symbolically at least) directly dis- pensed a judgment which in this context could claim, as so many orations put it, to serve at once both justice and their interest. (1995, 188)

N o t only did - in accordance with Gibbs' definition - both informal and formal strategies to force persons and groups to normative conformity belong to what we may call social control, but in Classical Athens there were no sharp boundary lines between the two at all. If Athenian litigation is just as much an aspect of social control as is gossip, we now learn that these two are far more mutually related than modern (law-)historians have realized. And, as Cohen shows, the historian ignores this at his peril: serious historical misinterpretation is the demonstrable result.

In other words, legal rhetoric is made possible through an understanding of the shared moral judgments on which the political community is based. This rhetorical nature of Athenian litigation made it ideal as a democratic mechanism for social control and the clarification of social and political hierarchies precisely because the courts did not reach decisions purely through the interpretation of legal norms and principles and their application to a particular transaction. (1995, 191)

The Athenian courts arrived at decisions in such a way as to make them a powerful vehicle for the articulation and expression of shared moral, social, and political judgments. As such, they provided a very powerful "democratic" mechanism for social control and for the regu- lation of competition among those vying for power, wealth, and influence. (1995, 192) I mention this exposure of the essentially social nature of Athenian jury-liti- gation10 not only for its fundamental significance to the concept of social control engaged in Jew-baiting to gain support of German gentiles (referential control, with Jews as the third party), he may have acted also in the belief that it would provoke violence against Jews that would drive some of them from Germany (allegative social control, with Jews as the second party).

10 For the complex and sophisticated interconnections of a community's normative "taxon- omies" including their concomitant sanctions and control - and the official laws of the cen-

as applied to Greek society, but - perverse as it may seem - in the first place to announce and explain its absence from the following discussion. What is true and revealing for Athenian society, is not, or less so, for the societies which I shall discuss. M y focus will be on different types of communities in different areas of—

or even outside - Greece proper, where democracy either did not occur or was of a different vintage and where different judicial systems prevailed. And, secondly, the justice that I shall discuss was not in the hands of men but in the hands of gods.

Gods and justice in classical Athens

In a recent paper entitled "Strategies of Religious Intimidation and Coercion in Classical Athens" Robert Garland (1996), pursuing a line of research he had broached more than ten years earlier11, investigates two related issues. The first concerns the strategies whereby the Athenian democratic system enforced reli- gious conformity, in his words: "strategies to encourage and enforce religious obedience". This type of civic protection of the religious codes and - as sceptics would sneer - of the gods themselves against acts of impiety are of course best exemplified in the asebeia processes, which dominate the modern debate on the limits of religious tolerance in Athenian religion12. However, this is not my con- cern in the present paper1 3. The second issue, in a way its reverse, concerns the question of how individual or collective behaviour in classical Athens might be manipulated and controlled through an appeal to divine authority. Or, to put it

tral authority in modern Mediterranean communities see: Cohen (1991) 52-54. His chapters 2 and 3: Models and Methods I and II (1991, 14-69), should be compulsory reading for any student of ancient (and modern) Mediterranean societies.

11 Religious Authority in Archaic and Classical Athens, in: BSA 79 (1984) 75-123.

12 E. Sandvoss, Asebie und Atheismus im klassischen Zeitalter der griechischen Polis, in:

Saeculum 19 (1968) 312-9; K.J. Dover, The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society, in:

Talanta 7 (1975) 24-54; B. Kötting, Religionsfreiheit und Toleranz im Altertum, Vortr.

Rhein.-Westfäl. Ak. (1977); A. Momigliano, Freedom of Speech ad Religious Tolerance in the Ancient World, in: S. C. Humpreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London etc. 1978) 179—

93; P. Garnsey, Religious Toleration in Antiquity, in: Persecution and Toleration (Studies in Church History 21, Oxford 1984) 1-27; Cohen (1991) 203-17.

13 This is not to say that asebeia trials cannot be exploited as strategies of social control in different ways, for instance as an instrument to eliminate persons who for some reason or other are undesirable or have raised envy. Socrates is the most notorious case in point. For twin accusations (religious and social or political) see: Versnel (1990) 116-8. However, the hidden social agenda is seldom revealed in explicit terms. A very telling exception is Aesop.

91: A sorceress made a profession of supplying charms and spells for the appeasing of the anger of the gods. She was assiduous in her business and thus made a comfortable living. But envious of her success, someone accused her of making innovations in religion, and pros- ecuted her for it in court. Her accusers succeeded and had her condemned to death. As she was led away from the court, someone shouted to her: "Hey woman! You made such a profit from diverting the wrath of the gods! Why can't you divert the wrath of the people?"

differently, how can the gods be deployed as instruments of social control1 4? This issue is all the more interesting since religious authority as represented by priests o r other cult-officials did not generally claim an absolute authority over the life and destinies of the adherents. Unlike Israelite religion for instance, it was never a central objective of Greek and Athenian religion to promote morality, since, as a rule, morality was not judged to be revealed through religion. O n e of the interest- ing aspects of social control through religious manipulation, namely conditional and promissory curses or imprecations, is the subject of Chris Faraone s contribu- tion to this volume1 5. As for the rest, hard evidence of divine retribution invoked by the demos16 in classical Athens seems to be exhausted by exactly two curses against religious transgressors, each of them concerning a notorious case: the curse against the Alcmaeonids for their sacrilegious manslaughter of their opponent Kylon, who had sought refuge with the statue of Athena, and the curse against Al- kibiades for his parody of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Furthermore orators would occasionally threaten members of a jury with the wrath of the god if they were to vote incorrectly. In this context we encounter sporadic expressions claiming that the gods "oversee all human acts" (Lyc. c. Leoc. 94)1 7. Similar expressions can be found in other literary genres, for instance tragedy: "though far off in heaven, they see all that men d o " (Eur. Bacchae 3 9 3 ff.).

O n the whole, the fact that, in classical Athens, these expressions occur seems to be less interesting than that their occurrence is so rare. Where, by Jove, is Homer's Zeus who sees all and hears everything1 8? Where are Hesiod's "thirty thousand

14 Burkert (1996) 7: "In this sense one might even say the divine is a social tool to manipulate communication" referring to V. Sommer, Lob der Lüge: Täuschung und Selbstbetrug bei Tier und Mensch (Munich 1992) 85-88, l l l f . for the concept social tool. And, of course, there is the immense field of religion applied as justification of political power and subjection: Bur- kert (1996) 93-97.

15 His paper, Curses and Social Control in the Law Courts of Classical Athens, has been published in the meantime in Dike 2 (1999) 99-121. Garland correctly points out that the issue here is not divine punishment of moral errors, but revenge of oath-breaking considered to be an insult against divine majesty. Cf. Dover (1974) 250-3; Mikalson (1983) Ch. 5: The Gods and Oaths; Versnel (1995) 372.

16 Thus Garland (1996).

17 Cf. ibid. 146, where the orator reminds the jury that "each of you, in casting his vote now in secret, will make his own thought apparent to the gods." Note, however, that, "only in cases involving some form of impiety was it thought that the gods would take cognizance of the vote of each juror and punish him if he voted unjustly" (Mikalson 1983,29).

18 Mikalson (1983) 29 rightly censures Dover (1974) 255, for taking the isolated expression in [Demosthenes] 25,10-11: "solemn Justice sits by the throne of Zeus and watches over all the affairs of men" as a "fundamental religious concept in the classical period." Mikalson of course admits that the idea is familiar in poetic literature from Hesiod onwards, but contends that it "occurs nowhere else in our sources". This is true only if one restricts ones sources to epigraphy, the Attic orators and Xenophon, as Mikalson does. By excluding tragedy, comedy and philosophical literature - for whatever valid reason - Mikalson ignores an essential sec- tion of Athenian religious expression, as several critics have noted. His ensuing rigorous dis- tinction between the gods of tragedy and those of popular religion including their respective behaviour, in his Honor Thy Gods: Popular Religion in Greek Tragedy (Chapel Hill 1991)

daimones", those "watchers of mortals . . . who keep watch on lawsuits and crimes, as they roam about the whole earth, clothed in mist" (Erga 252-5)? Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that whenever Athenian authors or speakers feel in- clined to remind their audience of divine omniscience, it is without exception in a markedly persuasive context. It is as if these expressions, being of a gnomic nature, remain available to be put into action at moments of real urgency or desperation¹⁹. Similarly, it is almost exclusively in the rhetoric of the lawcourt (or the classroom) that we find warnings about the way in which the polluting presence of a single criminal can put an entire city at risk, or endanger fellow passengers on board a ship²⁰, as for instance in Antiphon Tetralogies 5.82, and Aeschin. 2.158. A live in- terest in similar cases of pollution may occur in different sources. In an oracle question the people of Dodona ask their god: "Is it because of some human's im- purity that we are suffering this storm?"^{2 1} However, for classical Athens Parker (1983, 130 and cf. 278 ff.) hits the mark when he notes: "Specific instances, how- ever, prove surprisingly hard to discover.... It seems that the author of the Tetra- logies has taken the doctrine of pollution to a theoretical extreme some way beyond the level of unease that in practice it created."^{2 2}

provoked two particularly thoughtful reactions and re-considerations: R. Parker, Cruel Gods and Kind: Tragic and Civic Theology, and Chr. Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Re- ligion: Constructs and Readings, both in: Chr. Petting (ed.), Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford 1997) 143-160 and 161-186, respectively. Sourvinou-Inwood promises a book on the question: Tragedy and Athenian Religion: A Discourse of Exploration.

19 Garland (1996) 96 n.20, reminds us that Olympians were not on the whole mind-readers and therefore could not punish individuals for their unrevealed intentions of desires. "Om- niscience was never a feature of Olympianism." Hdt. 6.86 is an exception but only after the intention has been revealed. And in Kritias's play Sisyphos the impious protagonist ex- pounds (B25.20ff.) how some wise man in the remote past invented religion and persuaded his fellow-men that there exists a superhuman power such that "even if you plan an evil deed in silence, this will not escape the gods". Cf. Dover (1974) 257f. The belief that the intention and knowledge of a crime may be the object of divine punishment - so central in Christian theology - does prevail in pagan texts, but only in later texts from peripheral areas, as for instance in the material that we shall discuss later, and most emphatically in a sacred law from Philadelphia (second or first century B.C.: SIG 3 985; LSAM 20; O. Weinreich, SB Heidel- berg [1919]), which betrays a religious climate very similar to that of the confession στηλαι discussed below (Nilsson, GGR II 291) and to that of Christian communities. See: S. C. Bar- ton and G. H. R. Horsley, A Hellenistic Cult Group and N.T. Churches, in: JAuC 24 (1981) 7-41.

20 D. Wachsmuth, ΠΟΜΠΙΜΟΣ Ο ΔΑΙΜΩΝ. Untersuchung zu den antiken Sakralhand- lungen bei Seereisen (Berlin 1967) Ch. V § 33: Schiffbruch durch Asebie, presents the evi- dence from myth and legend.

2 1 SEG 19.427.

2 2 Cf. the evidence collected by Burkert (1996) Ch. 5: Guilt and Causality, where he discusses illness and other catastrophes conceived as sent by the gods as a penalty for some form of misconduct. There is not one case from Athens and the majority of examples are either very early (i.e. mythical) or very late (imperial period) and come either from marginal regions of the Greek world or from non-Greek areas. Xenophon should be mentioned as one remark- able exception in being rather prone to explain disasters as divine intervention to punish im- piety. E.g. in Hell. 5.4.1, he attributes the Spartan defeat at Leuktra to their flagrant breaking of their oath in 382 BC, being in his words one "of many instances among Greeks and bar-

In other words, we may well doubt whether in the eyes of the Athenians gods were consistently regarded as being actively involved in this type of retribution.

Rather we get the impression that automatic and natural effects of miasma or curses dominate the imagery of supernatural retribution. As for the gods, at least in the Athenian evidence they seem to be interested in their own rights rather than in what is right²³. Hence they were expected to interfere only in matters such as perjury, punishing perjurers or those who "forget" to fulfil their vows24. Besides, Euripides' tragedies or Aristophanes' comedies - like for instance Aristophanes' Birds 1606—25 - provide revealing glimpses of doubts concerning the intensity, the perseverance and the efficacy of their supervision. According to one source, Dia- goras ό άθεος became an atheist as a result of a loan that was never repaid to him²⁵. Accordingly, his notorious arguments against the existence of gods include the observation that Zeus does strike the roofs of his own temples with his thun- derbolt but not the houses of criminals, which, according to myth, he is expected to do^{2 6}.

barians to demonstrate that the gods are not indifferent to those who are impious or perpe- trate unholy deeds". Another outspoken instance in Hell. 4.4.12. On the Anabasis: Nilsson, GGR I, 787. Note, however, that all this concerns mainly post eventum interpretation and may have been politically inspired. Moreover, "the hand of God is an explanation that dulls the quest for truth": G. L. Cawkwell, Xenophon, A History of my Times (Harmondsworth 1979) 45.

2 3 "It would appear that the gods became directly involved in legal affairs only when those affairs concerned (1) acts which were considered impious and (2) perjury" (Mikalson 1983, 28). On bierosulia and theft of sacred property: D. Cohen, Theft in Athenian Law (Munich 1983) 93-103, with a full list of evidence at pp. 105-7, including examples involving asebeia.

2 4 Practically all the oracle questions (and answers) concerning the causes of illness, or mis- hap as collected by H. W. Parke, D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle (Oxford 1956) are related to religious - not interhuman - trespassing. They are handed down by later authors and mostly refer to (collective) legendary or mythical cases, breathing the atmosphere of post-classical religiosity: nos. 50, 58, 63, 64, 75, 108, 150, 158, 179, 191, 199, 210, 211, 292, 331,386,387,389,405,445,455,464,467,485,493,516,529,530,536,544, 546,552,554,556.

There are only three historical personal oracle questions concerning violations of sacral law (Plut. Mor. 404 A = P.-W. 464; Heliodor. Aeth. 4.19 = P.-W. 516; Porphyr. De Abst 2.9 = P.-W.

536) which concern offences and display a terminology closely related to those of the confes- sion inscriptions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. that we will discuss later.

2 5 See F. Jacobi, ΔΙΑΓΟΡΑΣ Ο ΑΘΕΟΣ (Berlin 1960) 5. Exactly the reverse in Ar. Nub 1455-1464, where the divine Clouds tell Strepsiades that it is their custom to plunge people into misery as a reminder to fear the gods (εως άν αύτόν έμβάλωμεν εις κακόν, δπως αν είδτ] τούς θεούς δεδοικέναι). Whereupon Strepsiades suddenly recalls that he should not have kept the money he had borrowed and sets out to repair the offence.

2 6 A related case of ,apostasy' can be found in Babrios' second fable. A farmer has lost his mattock and starts an inquiry (έπιζητέω) to ascertain whether it was stolen by certain indi- viduals. When they deny it, he takes them to a temple in a nearby city to take an oath. Once in the city, they hear a public herald putting up a reward for information about the where- abouts of property stolen from the temple. The farmer reacts: "How useless for me to have come here. How could this god know about other thieves, when he has no inkling about the ones who have stolen his own property?" The fable does not occur in earlier collections of fables and generally breathes a cultic atmosphere characteristic of post-classical religiosity, as we shall discuss below.

Altogether, we may conclude with Adkins²⁷ that the Athenians of the classical period - and not only the stray sceptic or atheist among them - generally no longer believed "that the gods punish injustice"²⁸. Even if tragedy and comedy prove that the Athenians were well aware of gnomic, poetical or philosophical no- tions concerning the justice of Zeus or of the Gods, they conspicuously failed to take advantage of that notion in the literary genre that was specifically preoccu- pied with the problems of human justice, viz. the forensic speeches. "Only in such instances, when their own prerogatives were threatened, did the gods act directly and on their own accord without human prompting. Crimes such as theft, em- bezzlement, assault, rape, and so forth did not concern the gods, unless the crime also included some act of impiety", thus finally Mikalson (1983, 30). Aristophanes Nub. 1455-64, as quoted in n.25, though at first sight contesting this, in fact offers confirmation. Aside from being an exception the passage seems to ridicule a no- tion of divine punishment that is well-known but not really taken all too seriously in Athenian religious practice.

As for the rest of Greece in the classical period we have not much information but the little we have seems to point in the same direction. I here single out one rich source, the oracle questions found at Dodona, mostly dating from the classi- cal period²⁹. In that context we often encounter the wish to discover the identities of culprits: "has Dorkilos stolen the garment?"30, "has Thopion stolen the money?"3 1, "is the child with whom my wife Annula is pregnant my child?"32

And so on and so forth³³. Most relevant to our topic are a few recently published oracular questions, all from the 4th century BC^{3 4}. "Did he (she?) apply a Pharma- kon (poison or witchcraft?) to my children or to my wife or to me, on behalf of Lyson?"; "did Timo bewitch/poison (κατεφάρμαξε) Aristoboula?" These are the very same suspicions that we shall encounter time and again in later texts from

27 A. W. H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility (Oxford 1960) 255.

2 8 Pace H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) 109, who claims that "from the time of Hesiod to the collapse of paganism, it is generally true that anyone who believed in the existence of the gods believed that they were just and righteous". The difference may be sought not so much in the supposed moral nature of the gods, but in their supposed readiness (or lack thereof) to interfere according to that moral nature. Moreover, with regard to the evi- dence from both daily life and literary sources "the problem is that few scholars like to face the intractability of the problem of evil; they would rather explain it away and believe that justice triumphs, that divinity is ultimately benevolent. As Kant has showed with devastating finality, however, in his Uber das Misslingen aller Philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee (Leipzig 1821) no such comfort is rationally possible. This is, I am convinced, precisely the way in which Aeschylus wished to present the problem of innocent suffering, and easy ex- planations should not be sought to defuse the force of his argument" (D. Cohen, Justice and Tyranny in the Oresteia, in: G&R 33 [1986] 129-141, esp. 140 n.ll).

2 9 More than 1400 tablet texts from the excavations of D. Evangelidis, 1928-35 (!) are finally

"nearly ready to appear in print", Christidis (1999) 67.

30 W. H. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus (Oxford 1967) no. 29.

31 Epeirotika Chronika 10 (1935) 259 no. 32.

32 W. H. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus (Oxford 1967) 266 no. 11.

3 3 Compare the Amasis-anecdote in Hdt. 2.174.

3 4 All are taken from Christidis (1999).

Knidos and the so-called confession texts from Lydia. However, different from these later texts the Dodona texts restrict themselves to requests for information, and do not present accusations or appeals for divine help. Unfortunately, we do not know how the inquirer reacted after having received the answer. Suppose the answer was: "Yes, Dorkilos did pinch your stola and, by the way, he was also the one who fathered your child", did the questioner go to the police? O r did he knock Dorkilos on the head? The interesting thing is that exactly this type of problem is attested in one of the new Dodona tablets: "Sosandros enquires about the curse (έπαράσιος) of Alex[...]: should I succeed if I go to court (ή τυγχάνοιμι κα δικαζόμ[ενος];)." Indeed, what can y o u do if you know a person has cursed you, apparently in an illegitimate way, perhaps by depositing a defixio and then telling the target or spreading the rumor about this action? G o to court? Anyway, in the published oracles texts from this marginal area of classical mainland Greece we find n o trace of divine justice35.

Altogether the evidence for appeals to the gods for the sake of justice in the clas- sical period3 6 is not overwhelming and to find richer and more detailed in- formation on the appeal to gods in the interest of social control we must move to later periods and different regions. As I am going to discuss this type of strategy, in accordance with the definition cited in the beginning of this paper, I start from the idea that divine intervention owes its relevance to the issue of social control by its being provoked or exploited through human initiative, most specifically

35 In other regions and later periods, however, oracular practice might offer ample room for combinations of information and revenge. An Oxyrhynchus papyrus written by a victim of theft first provides a - very conventional - oracle question concerning the culprit's identity, but immediately adds a judicial prayer against the thief. (Β. Kramer, POxy XII 1567: Orakel- frage, in: ZPE 61 [1985] 61 f., who also gives a full bibliography on oracular questions in pa- pyri. Also in the Maeonian confession procedures, discussed below, oracles may have played a part: BIWK no. 98.). From Kula in Lydia (ΤΑΜ 257, mentioned in BIWK p. X n.l 1; Cha- niotis [1997] 363 n.61) we have an inscription which refers to an oracular answer to a similar question, which is so decisive that the thief could be traced (and presumably juridically pros- ecuted). It is a votive stele for the goddess Meter Aliane. A slave woman Rhodia had asked the goddess to reveal the identity of the person who had stolen a large sum of money from the corn-barn of her husband. The money was discovered in the house of a person named Crescens. And Rhodia thanks the goddess.

36 There is a text which, though not Athenian, dates back to the late classical period. The story of Alcinoe, told by Moero (c. 300 BC) in her curses (L. Watson, ARAE: The Curse Poetry of Antiquity [Melksham 1991] 227f., with thanks to Chris Faraone for the reference):

"The story goes that Alcinoe, the daughter of Polybus of Corinth, the wife of Amphilochus son of Dryas, because of Athena's wrath fell madly in love with a Samian stranger, whose name was Xanthus. For she had employed in her house a hire-woman called Nicandre and put her to work for a year, but after that drove her from the house without giving her wages in full. And she prayed earnestly to punish Alcinoe for unjustly depriving her of what was hers. As a result, Alcinoe came to the point where she left her home and the children that she had there, and took ship along with Xanthus. But when she was in mid-voyage she came to the realisation of what she had done and straightway poured forth many tears, and called now upon her lawful husband, now upon her children, by name. And, finally, though Xan- thus did everything he could to soothe her and promised to make her his wife, she would not listen and flung herself into the sea."

through prayer or comparable forms of appeal. Secondly, the relevance of any type of evidence will be considerably enhanced if it is not inspired by official regu- lation and public law, but, on the contrary, if it is actually a response to the inad- equacy of official channels, consisting of individual attempts to influence social behaviour through an appeal to divine intervention.

Cursing the competitor

My material consists mainly of tiny pieces of text written on lead sheets and normally not available for inspection because of the secrecy of the places where they were deposited. Traditionally, these lead tablets - of which some fifteen hundred have been recovered - are referred to as curse tablets or defixiones. As has been emphasized in recent scholarly discussion, especially by Faraone, these de- fixiones are mainly inspired by motives of competition³⁷. More than three- quarters of the published Greek defixiones do not provide any hint of their spe- cific purposes, but the majority of those that do reveal a purpose concern social competition in largely four domains: 1) commerce and trade, 2) athletics, theatre and amphitheatre, 3) love and erotics³⁸, 4) lawsuits. Just as we see defendants binding - that is silencing - the tongues of their opponents, or athletes binding - that is laming - the limbs of their rivals, so we also find shopkeepers or artisans cursing their competitors, including their skills, their business and their hands and minds. These defixiones share a number of characteristics: they do not provide any explicit legitimation for the act, are anonymous, are addressed to powers of the underworld, who are often instructed or even commanded to do their jobs, and generally do not wish to inflict pain on³⁹ - let alone kill - the targets but only to make them powerless. These defixiones are what we would call a-moral and, al- though widely applied, were at times both legally forbidden and socially censured.

Yet, a double moral can be perceived, as the practitioners would argue that they simply cannot avoid resorting to these unsympathetic devices, since they are in- dispensable instruments to advance or protect the well-being of themselves and their families in the social struggle for life.

3 7 See especially Faraone (1991) and Gager (1992), who arranged his chapters according to the various agonistic classes. For earlier classifications (Audollent, Kagarow, Preisendanz) see Faraone (1991) 27 n.45. Cf. also: Graf (1997) 157-60, who pays special attention to a more comprehensive principle: the experience of crisis and uncertainty.

3 8 For which see: Chr. A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, Mass., London 1999).

3 9 With the exception of a certain class of erotic curses or spells, as elucidated by Versnel (1998).

Praying for justice

However, there is another type of tablet texts, which is of special interest to our present issue. By way of introduction let us have a look at a tablet from Athens (DTA 98, fourth/third century). The first part of the tablet is a perfect sample of a genuine defixio as just described:

Euruptolemos of Agrule. I bind Euruptolemos and Xenophon who is with Euruptolemos, and their tongues and words and deeds; and if they are planning or doing anything let it be in vain.

The second part, however, is different in tone:

Beloved Earth, restrain Euruptolemos and Xenophon and make them powerless and useless;

and let Euruptolemos and Xenophon waste away. Beloved Earth, help me; and since I have been wronged by Euruptolemos and Xenophon I bind them, (φίλη Γη, βοήθει μοι.

αδικούμενος γάρ υπό Εύρυπτολέμου και Ξενοφώντος καταδώ αυτούς).

There is a sudden change in atmosphere. Instead of an instruction to the god in a more or less instrumental action, we find a flattering (φίλη!) request for help, which is supported by a reference to the injustice suffered. Perhaps more than argumentation is hiding in the phrase άδικούμενος γάρ. Let us have a look at another fourth century B.C. Attic tablet (DTA 100), which displays a similar con- stitution. First an authentic defixio formula:

Saturos from Sounion and Demetrios and all of them as well, whoever else [is hostile] to me. I bind (καταδώ) them, ο Onesimos4 0. All of them, their persons and their acts against me I en- trust to you, in order that you take care of them (τηρ(ε)ΐν), Hermes Restrainer, restrain their names, and all that belongs to them.

Then the tone changes abruptly:

Hermes and Ge (Earth), I implore you to take care of all of this and punish them, but [save him] who has struck the lead.

Έ ] ρ μ η και Γή, Ικετεύω ύμας τηρ(ε)ΐν ταϋτα και τούτους κολάζ(ε)τ(ε) σφζετε τό]ν μολυβδοκόπον

Neither the verb ικετεύω ("to pray and implore devoutly") nor the phrase "help me" in the previous text, is really at home in the majority of defixiones. Another key word, κολάζ(ε)τ(ε), implies a justified punishment. More interesting, how- ever, is the closing passage, which (although it is mutilated) almost certainly asks that the writer of the tablet himself should suffer no harm. It seems as though he excuses himself for this indelicate, but unfortunately unavoidable device. In our collections of defixiones we find quite a few of these 'deviant' texts concerning pleas for justice, punishment and revenge and adding a legitimation for this appeal

4 0 F o r this interpretation as a vocative of the addressee, viz the dead person, see Bravo (1987) and Voutiras o.e. infra n.78.

to the deity. Here are some more all stemming from fourth century Athens. DTA 102 begins as follows:

I send a letter41 to the demons (? the text has only .. .Jaimo) and to Persephone and "deliver"

to them Tibitis, daughter of Choirine, who has wronged me (την έμ(έ) άδικο(ϋ)σαν).

In DTA 120 the victim is similarly designated: τό[ν] έμέ άτιμο(ϋ)ντα ("who has treated me shamefully") and on a very severely mutilated tablet (DTA 158) we read,

το]ΐς άδικο(υ)μέν[οις ... ά]δικ(υ)μέν[οις ... (κ)αί δίκ[η...].

Finally DTA 103:

To Hermes and Persephone I send this letter. Because I direct this (curse) against criminal people (άμαρ[τωλο(ύ)ς), they must, Ο Dike, receive their deserved punishment (τυχεΐν τέλο(υ)ς δίκης).

On account of these and other texts I have argued for a differentiation between the defixiones proper and another category, which I labelled prayer for justice or judi- cial prayer⁴². As always, we are speaking in terms of family resemblance and poly- thetic classes, with overlapping and criss-crossing similarities43. Even so, the prayers for justice are generally marked by a series of characteristics that clearly separate them from the defixiones proper. These may include the use of legal ter- minology, the notion that gods are all-seeing judges and hence a deferential form of address and the association of the action with a more or less official temple rit- ual, and finally, the desire to legitimately inflict pain, ailment, death upon the ad- versary as a punishment or constraint to redress an offence. Obviously in all these cases the plaintiffs feel fully entitled to their actions, legitimating them with refer- ences to the injuries they have suffered. Theft⁴⁴ prevails among these injuries, which implies that the perpetrators are mostly unknown, a circumstance which may lend an additional aspect of ordeal⁴⁵ to the action of the divine judges.

Altogether, then, in this specific type of tablet text the target is not (or not prin- cipally) a competitor in the social sphere; he is first and foremost someone accused of a crime, to be judged and persecuted by divine law. The earliest Athenian attes- tations - as cited above - date from the fourth century BC. They are rare and dis- play only a fraction of the characteristics just mentioned·. Their numbers increase in the Hellenistic period and peak in the imperial period. Regardless of their his-

41 On this Jenseitskorrespondenz see: K. Preisendanz, Fluchtafel (Defixio), RAC 8 (1972) 7-8 and Faraone (1991) 4, and infra n.77.

42 Versnel (1991). I have a problem with the term vindictive prayer - as it is sometimes applied - since it implies the notion of vengeance or spite, which may, but does not always, occur in this type of appeal.

4 3 I have discussed these concepts in the context of magic in: Some Reflections on the Rela- tionship Magic-Religion, in: Numen 38 (1991) 177-197.

4 4 Especially theft of garments or footwear. This seems to have been a major concern in an- tiquity: O. Meynersen, Der Manteldiebstahl des Sokrates. Ar. Nub. 175-9, in: Mnemosyne 46 (1993) 18-32. However, refusal to return a loan also occurs in curses and is also reflected in the very same comedy: Ar. Nub 1455-1464. Vide supra n.25.

45 Versnel (1995). And cf. the fable of Babrios mentioned in n.26.

torical and topographical setting however, there is an invariable distinction to be drawn between competitive defixiones on the one hand, and curses intended to punish the opponent by inflicting suffering on the other46.

Now, both types of tablet texts provide fascinating insights into strategies of social control. The defixiones proper, being inspired by competition, give us wel- come insights into the feelings of envy cherished by the authors. O n the other hand, they may also function as a kind of counter-magic to ward off or counter the envy, gossip and Schadenfreude as demonstrated by enemies of the author. Envy, gossip, slander and mockery are among the most popular and effective strategies in the competition for social equality, especially in order to prevent others from outmanoeuvering you on the scale of honour. " N o family can stand to see another prosper without feeling envy and wishing the other harm", writes the anthropol- ogist E. G. Banfield47. Hence the extreme mistrust and secretiveness of the family in its eternal competition against other families and groups, all permanently en- gaged in attempting to discredit one another, so as to rise - or keep the other from rising - in the social scale48. In these competitive societies "gossip serves as a par- ticularly effective form of social control since it is impossible to locate its exact source and eliminate it"4 9.1 have discussed this fascinating aspect of social behav- iour in a recent paper, starting from an apposite judicial prayer on a lead tablet asking the goddess Demeter to "punish those who rejoice in our misery"50.

Heiliges Recht in Knidos and other places

So, for the present occasion our topic will be the prayers for justice and their relevance to the issue of social control. During the excavations of the temple of Demeter and Persephone at Knidos in the South West of Asia Minor in the middle of the 19th century, C. T. Newton found a number of lead tablets containing texts which, as he soon discovered, betrayed some similarity with, but were clearly dif- ferent from, magical defixiones⁵¹. The majority are sorely damaged and because precise dating could not be established by either the archaeological context or the letter type, Newton ventured a rough estimation between 300 and 100 BC, per- haps somewhat later. The majority of later commentators opted for the second or

46 Versnel (1998) 184.

47 E.G. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society ( N e w York, London 1958) 115.

48 O n the social functions of gossip etcetera there is a rich literature, for which I refer to Vers- nel (1999). On ancient Greece, especially Athens, two excellent studies appeared recently:

Cohen (1991), index s.v., and V. J. Hunter, Policing Athens: Social Control in the Attic Lawsuits, 420-320 B.C. (Princeton 1994) 96-118, Ch. 4: The Politics of Reputation: Gossip as a Social Construct, a revised form of an article with the same title in Phoenix 44 (1990) 299-315.

49 J. Cutileiro, A Portuguese Rural Society (Oxford 1971) 140.

50 yersnel (1999).

51 Newton (1863) nos. 81-95.

first century BC. The texts as given by subsequent editors and commentators in- cluding Wünsch, Bechtel, Audollent, Steinleitner and most recently Blümel (1992) nos. 147-159⁵², can be considered definitive. At any rate, new suggestions on the basis of autopsy cannot be expected in view of the current deplorable state of the material. The texts have often been introduced as evidence in various studies on defixiones, curse texts, confession texts and the like, but this by no means implies that all the riddles have been solved. I shall first give a short picture of the rather stereotyped contents of these 13 to 15 tablets⁵³.

The reason for their existence is that the authors, who are always women - not surprisingly in a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore -, believe that they have been wronged by another - generally unknown - person. Cases in point are theft, re- fusal to return a deposit, physical injury, seduction of a husband by another woman, slander or false accusations, especially with respect to black magic or poi- son. By means of these tablets the injured person resorts to the deities of the local temple. She devotes or commends (άνατίθημι or άνιερόω) the culprit - some- times the stolen object - to Demeter, Kore and the gods who are with them. Next, there are two possibilities: the culprit can redeem his/her error, for instance by re- turning the stolen object to the owner, after which the case is closed. O r he/she re- mains obstinate, in which case Demeter is requested to force the culprit to a public confession (έξαγορεύειν) and/or to restore the damage by bringing it to the temple. In cases of slander, of course, mere confession suffices. By way of example let us read parts of three of these texts (the numbering follows Audollent's DT).

N o . 2, (A) Artemis dedicates to Demeter and Kore and the gods with Demeter, all of them, the person54 who did not return the garments that I had left behind, although I asked them back. May he, in his own person, bring them up to Demeter, also if it is another person who has my possessions, burning with fever (πεπρημένος), publicly confessing his deed (έξαγορεύων).

(Β) Let it be permissible for me to drink and eat together and to come under the same roof (as the cursed person). For I am wronged, Lady Demeter.

The two words πεπρημένος (being burnt with fever) and έξαγορεύων (openly confessing) are mutilated on the tablet but can be supplemented with certainty since they are formulaic and return in the majority of the texts. For instance No. 4, a curse written by Hegemone. This lady is rather unrestrained in her complaints, which require two sides of the tablet, of which I only quote side A:

5 2 DTA p. Xff.; H. Gollwitz, F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, vol.

3., pt. 1 (Göttingen 1899) 234 ff.; D T 1-13; Steinleitner (1913) nos. 3 4 - 4 7 . Some of them in SIG3 1178-1180. Two of them in English translation in Gager (1992). Discussions in Latte (1920) 80; Zingerle (1926); Björck (1938) 221 ff.; Nilsson G G R 1 2 2 1 f.; Versnel (1991) 72 ff., on which the present section is based. There are some textual conjectures in E.G. Kagarow, Griechische Fluchtafeln, Eos Suppl. 4 (Leopoli 1929) 52.

5 3 The number depends on the editor's decision whether or not two fragments belong to one tablet. In this paper I shall follow the arrangement as proposed by Audollent.

5 4 Blümel proposes a different interpunction and a different constitution of the text. In the light of the parallel texts wrongly so.

I hand over to Demeter and Kore the person who has accused me of preparing poisons/spells (φάρμακα) against my husband. Let him go up to Demeter, burnt by fever, with all his family (μετά των αύτοϋ ίδιων), publicly confessing (έξαγορεύων). And let him not find Demeter, Kore or the gods with Demeter merciful. As for me let it be permissible and acceptable for me to be under the same roof or involved with him in any way. And I hand over also the per- son who has written negatively (or: who has written charges) against me or commanded others to do so. And let him not benefit from the mercy of Demeter, Kore, or the gods with Demeter, but may he go up burnt by fever together with all his family.

N o . 1, finally, provides a unique conditional self-curse by the author of the tablet Antigone:

I, Antigone, make a dedication to Demeter, Kore and all the gods and goddesses with De- meter. If I have given poison/spells (φάρμακα) to Asklapiadas or contemplated in my soul doing anything evil to him; or if I have called a woman to the temple, offering her a mina and a half for her to remove him from the living, (if so) may Antigone be burnt by fever and go up to Demeter and make confession, and may she not find Demeter merciful but instead suffer great torments. If anyone has spoken to Asklapiadas against me or brought forward the woman, by offering her copper coins ...

This is the only text in which the word for confessing is not a form of έξαγορεύειν but έξομολ(ογ)ουμ[ένα]. Elsewhere we find once κολαζόμενοι5 5 instead of the fixed term for the divine coercion πεπρημένος. In a few texts it is added that the culprit may find the goddess unmerciful or implacable (μή τύχοι εύιλάτου Δάματρος), which is only in no. 1 also circumscribed as μεγάλας βασάνους βασανιζομένα (put to the test by great tortures). This much is clear: the culprit must experience the action of the goddess as a kind of bodily coercion and the di- vine interference is intended as a sort of judicial torture, in order to force the cul- prit to confession and redress.

As a result of their being dedicated to the gods, the culprits have come into a provisional situation which in Latin is referred to as sacer: they are cursed and in a way have come under the jurisdiction of the powers of the netherworld. In order to escape contagion the author sometimes adds a sort of proviso. The curse must not fall upon the author of the tablet, not even if she might meet the cursed person, be in his company, eat or drink with him or be at the same table or under the same roof. We encountered a comparable expression earlier in a fourth century tablet⁵⁶.

55 In no. 3 A ; no. 8 has the variant: τιμ[ω]ρίας τύχοι and πα[σ]αν κόλασιν.

56 The wish containing the opposition "to me δσια, to the culprit ανόσια" is common: Latte (1920) 64ff. with many examples; Björck (1938) 122ff. esp. 124 n.l and 132; Wünsch, DTA Praef. XII. On the wish that the guilty may not be a friend or όμόστεγος see: K. Latte, Schuld und Sühne in der griechischen Religion, in: ARW 20 (1920/21) 254-98 = Kleine Schriften 9.

In his view this is the reason that processes for manslaughter are always in open air, following O. Weinreich, Blutgerichte EN ΥΠΑΙΘΡΙΩΙ, in: Hermes 56 (1921) 326-31 = Ausgew.

Schriften I, 552-7. The idea of pollution among people being under one roof already occurs in the famous inscription from Cyrene of the 4th c. BC (SEG 9.72; LSS 115; Parker (1983) 332-51, esp. 336): "The woman in childbed shall pollute the roof ... she shall not pollute (anyone) outside the roof unless he comes in ..." Also in the sacred law from Philadelphia mentioned above in n.19. Cf. on the infectious state of the accursed also: W. Speyer, Fluch, RAC 7 (1969) 1181. Generally on the role of women: S. Guettel Cole, GUNAIKI OU THE- MIS: Gender Difference in the Greek Leges Sacrae, in: Helios 19 (1992) 104-22, esp. 109-110;

Chance encounters and unavoidable meetings can easily be imagined in a small face to face community, especially if the identity of the accursed person is un- known. Another recurrent element, which we also noticed earlier, is that the author excuses herself for having to resort to these unsympathetic measures, but has no alternative: άδίκημαι γάρ Δέσποινα Δάματερ, a formula with which we are well acquainted from other related texts and from secular petitions for jus- tice^{5 7}. As a matter of fact, it can be shown that the secular enteuxis (petition), well- known from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, has been transferred literally to this special instance of divine justice⁵⁸.

All this makes it abundantly clear that these texts cannot be identified with the defixio proper but rather belong to a genre which, since Latte 1920 and Zingerle 1926, is generally referred to as Heiliges Recht, appeals to divine justice in order to bring about some form of retaliation. The remarkable fact that both the culprit and the stolen object may be dedicated or commended to the goddess has given rise to quite some alarm among scholars. "Aber welcher Fluch!" exclaims one of the first commentators, Wachsmuth (1863), deriding Newton's interpretation,

"Wenn sie aber das Gestohlene nicht wiedergeben, so sollen sie es der Göttin zu- stellen." H e cannot believe this to be the correct interpretation and yet this is exactly what the texts tell us^{5 9}. Fortunately, more than a century later, a hoard of A. Chaniotis, Reinheit des Körpers - Reinheit der Seele in den griechischen Kultgesetzen, in:

J. Assmann, Th. Sundermeier (eds.), Schuld, Gewissen und Person (Studien zum Verstehen fremder Religionen 9, Gütersloh 1997) 142-79, esp. 147, and on the Philadelphia inscription:

ibid. 159—62. Α related type of expression still prevails in medieval and early modern Greek curses from South Italy (15-16th c.) (F. Pradel, Griechische und Süditalienische Gebete, Be- schwörungen und Rezepte des Mittelalters [Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorar- beiten III.3, Giessen 1907] 22. 1. 11): μή συμπιης, μή συμφάγης, μή συγκοιμήθχις, μή συνανάστης μετά τοϋ δούλου τοϋ θεοΰ.

5 7 The evidence can be found in Versnel (1991).

5 8 The juridical jargon is particularly clear in a recently published curse tablet from Oropos (3rd/2nd cent.), whose nature was not recognised by its editor, B. C. Petrakos, Οί επιγραφές τοΰ Ώρωποϋ (Athens 1997). I owe this reference to EBGR (1997) no. 296, and quote the summary by Chaniotis forthcoming 2001. "Someone cursed a series of persons, willing them to be delivered to Plouton and Mounogenes (Persephone), and wishing them death and mis- ery. Unlike ordinary defixiones, the cursor justified himself: "I demand that my request be heard, because I have been wronged" (ll. 15f.: [άδικο]ύμενος άξ[ιώ πάντα] έπήκοα γενέσ[θαι]); "having been wronged, and not having wronged first, I demand that what I have written down and deposited to you be acomplished" (11. 25-29: άξιώι ουν αδικούμενος και ούκ άδικων πρότερος έπιτελ[η] γενέσθα(ι) α καταγράφω και ά παρατίθεμαι ΰμϊν; cf. 1.10:

άξιώ; 1. 45: άδικούμενος ύπ' αύτών). The cursor obviously believed that the more or less mechanical application of a curse formulary against the person who had wronged him would not suffice; his appeal to the gods of the Netherworld would be more effective if he presented legal („I have been wronged") and moral justifications („not having wronged first").

5 9 For cession (παραχωρέω) of either the stolen object or the thief (or both) to the god, see Versnel (1991) 79-83. A splendid new example from a dedication of the nature of a judicial prayer to Men Axiottenos (AD 176/7) in: H. Malay, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Manisa Museum (ΤΑΜ Ergänzungsband 19, Vienna 1994) no. 171 (EGBR 1994-5, no.225):

Tatias has purchased certain objects which were probably not delivered to her. So she ceded them to the god and leaves it to him to do whatever he wishes. [Τα]τιάς άγοράσασα [...]α